❖ Yves Smith points out that the Congressional Budget Office’s forecast of an “89.7% federal debt to GDP ratio by 2022″ (precluding any policy changes) excludes one very significant component–”the federal government’s financial assets”, which brings the ratio down to under 82% by 2020. There are some other issues with the CBO analysis as well.

❖ Take a walk with Matt Levine down Bank of America Path through Mortgage Fraud Land. Fannie Mae thinks BofA should buy back some old mortgages, so BofA is suing them. They’re also suing MBIA over mortgage fraud, which is also suing BofA for same. MBIA has done some rapid shuffling lately–and BofA some fast responding. It’s a real head-spinner.

❖ Consolidation seems to be overtaking competition: Four huge meatpacking companies control 72% of the poultry market; two multinational corporations control 80% of the beer sold in the US; and consolidation in publications is rapidly occurring right now.

Politics USA

❖ “Sen John Cornyn (R-TX), the newly elected Minority Whip, invoked the Bowles-Simpson fiscal commission Wednesday as a ‘roadmap’ for upcoming deficit-reduction negotiations to avoid the fiscal cliff.” The prospect of Cornyn as Minority Whip elicited this response on Morning Joe: “Cornyn getting promoted is an unbelievable thing given what happened [all those GOP losses while Cornyn was National Republican Senatorial Committee Chair]. . . . his losses in the senate races speaks for itself.”

❖ Michael Morell, CIA Deputy Director, currently standing in for the departed David Petraeus, is expected by some to be made permanent CIA Director. His experience with the agency–including the August 2001 Bush briefing about 9/11–is quite interesting.

❖ Paula Broadwell had taken classified military documents home and federal agents were at her home Monday night to retrieve them, apparently.

❖ David Petraeus “will voluntarily testify before congressional panels investigating the September terrorist attack in Beghazi, Libya, Sen. Dianne Feinstein said Wednesday.” DiFi didn’t say exactly when he will appear, though it come be as early as Friday.

❖ Luke Russert asked Rep Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) if her continuing as House Minority Leader might not prevent “younger Democrats from moving into leadership positions.” Pelosi’s response? “Let’s, for a moment, honor it as a legitimate question, although it’s quite offensive, but you don’t realize that, I guess.” Video.

❖ In AZ’s 2nd Congressional District, Republican Martha McSally is running a very close race against incumbent Democrat Ron Barber. McSally called in “two high-powered lawyers” to halt counting of 130 provisional ballots which arrived unsealed at the Cochise County Elections Department. The ballots were from a predominantly Latino area. The voting is continuing, but “the votes may be challenged in the future.”

❖ At a gathering of Obama supporters, a reporter asked US Interior Secretary Ken Salazar about a sale of 1700 wild horses to a Colorado businessman who allegedly sent them to Mexican slaughterhouses. Afterwards, Salazar told the reporter, “If you set me up like this again, I’ll punch you out.” This was witnessed; Interior says Salazar “regrets the exchange.”

❖ TX Gov Perry and Lt Gov Dewhurst support drug testing for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families applicants through Senate Bill 11. Democrat State Rep Joe Deshotel has challenged Perry and Dewhurst “to support adding a drug test requirements to the application to run for state office in Texas.” Or, “Lead by Example – Give Us A Sample”.

Health, Homelessness & Hunger

❖ Almost 35 million US adults were living in others’ homes during 2012. Most (17.2 million) were adult children of the householder, and their number has been steadily increasing since around 2004. The number of unemployed adult children living with their parents has almost doubled since 2007–from 1.3 to 2.5 million.

Women & Children

❖ Another woman died because she could not obtain an abortion in Ireland. She succumbed to septicemia, after repeatedly asking for termination of the pregnancy while she was in the process of miscarrying.

❖ Change.org’s petition called for the federal government to provide all Hurricane Sandy first responders with health benefits. “Today, the Office of Personnel Management [announced] it will immediately begin providing permanent health benefits to more than 8,000 disaster assistance employees who work on intermittent or temporary schedules.”

Heads Up!

❖ “TransCanada Bulldozes Texas Farmer’s Renewable Biofuels Business”. “Feeling he had no other legal recourse to stop them, . . . he decided to settle with the industry in a pre-court hearing on Friday.”

❖ “Colombia’s Liberal Party . . . wants the country’s judicial authorities to investigate allegations made by Israeli mercenary Yair Klein who had testified that a Colombian ex-president took part in the creation and training of paramilitary groups in the 1980s.” The father of one member of the Liberal Party was murdered by death squad in 1989.

45 Responses
to “The Roundup for November 14, 2012”

The problem is that to enact a carbon tax would depend on political courage and a willingness to break with party orthodoxy, rare traits in Washington today. President Obama has made energy and climate part of his agenda for the second term, but his first — and perhaps biggest — opportunity to make good on that promise will come in the next few weeks. As US politicians contemplate diving into the fiscal abyss, they would be wise to consider a painless policy that benefits everyone.

The Tablet’s version seems to have a serious Hasbara spin to it, fatster…! 8-(

As I noted… …the IDF has invoked the Torah in calling this operation Pillar of Cloud (as in “By day the LORD went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way”). No, I’m sorry. God doesn’t walk with killers. My God doesn’t want blood, either Jewish or Palestinian. My God is not an anti-jihadi. He doesn’t hate Muslims or Arabs…

* The irony of Luke Russert suggesting that someone ELSE step aside to give a promising up-and-comer a chance is just too delicious.

* This has been the week of the smackdown. (1) Obama appropriately put Israel-first senators McCain and Graham in their place for trying to trump up a reason to filibuster Susan Rice’s nomination to be Secretary of State. (2) Yesterday Michael Hastings awesome rant on Piers Morgan. (3) Luke Russert of course.

* The evidence proves that drug-testing TANF recipients costs much more than it saves, but regardless the cost is not unaffordable and it’s a popular idea in red states. I suspect it’s here to stay.

* If you read the article about health benefits to temporary FEMA employees, the numbers don’t quite add up. By my calculations the potential pool of newly-eligibles in 2100, not 8000. Most of those probably have insurance from another source, don’t want to buy it, or will be out of a job in the next few months. Also I think this change was already in the works pre-Sandy so the importance of the Change.org petition is doubtful. Anyway it’s a small step.

* Poor DiFi: Petraeus has already granted his first interview to the HOUSE Intelligence Committee. I can’t think of anything more boring than watching DiFi question Petraeus when she has no interest in uncovering any wrongdoing. Should be good for some laughs though.

Yet Hamas is getting arms support from Iran. The Egypt/Gaza border is porous again, after all. That might include some new, deeper tunnels but also a lot more pedestrian surface traffic through more open checkpoints.

There isn’t much Israel can do about checkpoints controlled by Egypt short of a conflict much bigger than 2008. So, the question would be how determined Israel really is. Back in 2008, the carnage notwithstanding, it was about destroying tunnels as they emerged inside the Gaza side of the border. Nowadays it would be much worse since Egypt’s turf is directly involved.

I don’t think Israel gave a hoot about that Hamas military leader one way or another. Killing him, though, was to offer a useful casus belli to Hamas, to invite a response, escalate again, etc., and do 2008 over again on a bigger scale. So the Israelis think they will win this sequence, and they aren’t likely to listen to us whether we like it or not.

I think there’s been a trend for restaurants to lard up the adjectives and adverbs in their menus. Each one adds a dime or quarter to the price of the dish it describes.

What’s the significance of “Pan Seared,” anyway? I had “Twisted Prosciutto” and “Limed” salad dressing last night at an overpriced but tasty restaurant. Most of these things we can do at home just as well.

:) Some of us cook, and some don’t, and I suspect that’s a big part of it, don’t you maa8722?

I never will forget decades ago when polenta was at the top of everyone’s special culinary experience. I recognized it right away–basically, it was corn meal mush. As you noted, just more expensive because it was called polenta.

Secret filming shows Lord Howell, who also advises the Government on energy, and Peter Lilley, a senior Tory MP who is a climate change sceptic, claiming Mr Osborne shares their hostility to building more onshore wind-turbines.

“The Prime Minister is not familiar with these issues, doesn’t understand them… Osborne is of course getting this message and is putting pressure on,” Mr Osborne’s father-in-law Lord Howell told a a Greenpeace activist posing as an anti-wind farm lobbyist, who was covertly recording him.

… and ends, not with a pot of gold, but so:

Tonight Mr Lilley said: “My remarks about George Osborne were taken from reading the newspapers. I don’t have any inside knowledge about what is going on in his head.”
[…]
Lord Howell could not be contacted for comment.

I was among the “some of us don’t” for a long time. Then I had to learn how to prepare basic dishes with minimal or no salt and small amounts of the right fats. It is possible.

The prepared foods in the store, canned or sometimes frozen, go overboard with salt and fat which are unhealthy shortcuts toward taste. I look at that nutrition disclosure box on everything then cringe if any portion allocation exceeds 10% of the daily allowance. I look for 5% preferably, or opt for my own alternatives.

I like the war on sugar and fat nowadays, but it’s an incomplete effort. The cooking TV shows help keep people additced and bringing in ad revenue. Salt and worthwhile alternatives such as pepper, lemon or lime aren’t discussed enough. And as for those restaurant menus, try asking for nutrition disclosures and they’ll think you’re from another planet.

The key is the approach. How do I cook something which is healthy and which I’ll enjoy eating more than a salty can of soup or those frozen precooked meatballs? For me that angle works every time.

Now it occurs to me that perhaps Israel’s end game this time may be to moot out the checkpoints while avoiding the Egyptian territory.

They might structure the conflict, aim it toward rushing in on the Gaza side of Egypt/Gaza border to seize a narrow, eight mile long strip of Gazan land, along the border, and proceeding to the sea. It would be to seal the border and control traffic across, or stop it completely.

Now I think that’s more likely than an outright incursion into Egypt. In a perverse way, it would be less difficult for the IDF and, hence, more likely. There would be pleas for the UN to intervene yet again, and they’d be handed another monitor/control mission they don’t want.

I’d have eagerly moved to a different, pleasanter subject had last night been quieter over there. It wasn’t.

Mitt Romney’s son Tagg has been gathering some of his father’s richest friends into a private-equity fund called Solamere, writes Froma Harrop. It’s a clever instrument for pursuing government subsidies, contracts and tax breaks should Romney win.

While I’m obviously not a particular fan of the “leadership” in either party, the fact remains that Luke Russert is the epitome of the half-bright, spoiled frat boy who is in way over his head. He could also serve as the poster child for why nepotism is almost always a bad thing: there is no possible way he would ever be in the position of “congressional correspondent” for a major, corporate entity were it not for the fact of his having inherited that status. NBC should do the right thing and show him the door. And while they’re at it, I would appreciate it if they would give “Dipshit Dancin’ David Gregory” the hook along with him…

If the palestinians keep lobbing rockets over the border, should the Israelis not retaliate? I do admit that there is blood on both sides but if one side would stop with the bombs, the other side will stop with the bombs!

I thought I heard the great man say the troops were coming home from Afghanistan.’

guess I “misheard”

Associated Press.

“Defence Secretary Leon Panetta said the Obama administration is nearing a decision in the next few weeks on how many U.S. troops would remain in Afghanistan — and for what purposes — after the U.S.-led combat mission ends in 2014.

Panetta told reporters aboard his plane en route from Hawaii to Australia that Gen. John Allen, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, has developed several options on a post-2014 presence.
.

Pressed to say whether he would rule out staying for all four years of a second Obama term, he replied: “Who the hell knows?”

In explaining the status of Afghanistan planning, Panetta said the administration is weighing Allen’s options on post-2014 troop levels. He would not reveal what troop levels are being considered, but it is believed that at least several thousand could be needed for several years beyond 2014.

Apparently Jane Harmon has CNN touting her for CIA Director. That would be another disaster at CIA. Right-wing radio claims it’s going to be Dennis Kucinich; of course that’s a non-starter for Senate approval without filibuster reform.

No. It is not meaningless. The debt/GDP ratio is one of the variables that determines what proportion of GDP goes to servicing the debt. Depending on the size of that ratio, the rate of growth of GDP and the real interest rate, the debt is either sustainable or unsustainable in the long run (which in financial talk means the short run as well). The ratio alone, however, is meaningless without the other variables. A rapidly growing economy can support a high ratio; a no growth-economy supports a lower one. Most of this stuff is not understood by the pundits and financial journalists, who only think about the ratio itself. At the present close to zero interest on government debt, the ratio can go a lot higher without creating any problems for the future.

You’re so right, maa8722. It wasn’t, it isn’t and it’s not going to be. Appreciate your very thoughtful comments on it. All I can think of in Gaza and in Syria and far too many places all over the globe are little children screaming in fear and terror. Thnx for your calming influence.

That’s an interesting article, mafr, and thanks for linking to it. There are still hundreds of troops in Iraq–maybe guarding that humongous “embassy” or something. However, this really piqued my interest: “For decades American administrations have fought the perception among Asians that Washington paid too little attention to their security interests.” I guess since my generation was traumatized by it, I keep thinking “Vietnam”. Be careful what you wish for.